change in reports?

[Jack]

I'm doing some preliminary end of year tax planning, so I modified one  
of my tax reports from last year just changing the dates to this year,  
and then exported to csv.  I have a script that adjusts some of the  
columns so things look better to me when imported into LibreOffice.   
Unfortunately, the script didn't work correctly, as it appears this  
year the export of negative numbers uses parentheses (123.45) instead  
of a negatives sign -123.45.  Is this something that was intentionally  
changed that I just missed, or is it something I can configure (or even  
adjust with a local patch) ?  I can certainly adjust my script, but I'd  
rather not have to, if there is any easier fix.

Thanks.
Jack